An IT operating model built for growth at an Australian quick-service restaurant chain
A new platform cannot deliver growth on its own if the operating model behind it is not ready. That was the risk facing an Australian quick-service restaurant chain before a major technology investment. Mulberry Group guided an IT capability self-assessment across plan, build and run, deepened the results through stakeholder interviews and benchmarked the business against three peer operators. Seven capabilities emerged as priorities. We built them into a target operating model and a three-horizon IT roadmap, so the platform, the operating model, and the growth strategy now move forward as one plan.
CLIENT BACKGROUND
The client is a well-established, multi-site quick-service restaurant chain operating across Australia. Technology sits close to the centre of day-to-day trading throughout the business. Point-of-sale, workforce management, inventory and supply chain, and customer loyalty systems all need to work reliably to keep every site running smoothly.
A major platform investment without a clear view of IT capability
To support its growth ambitions, the business had planned a significant investment in a new point-of-sale platform, and needed a clear, evidence-based view of its IT capability to realise the full value of that investment. IT leadership wanted the right operating model and organisation behind the investment to accelerate it and reduce its risk. That meant knowing where IT capability stood today, where the greatest opportunities lay, and which mattered most to address first. We were engaged to run a comprehensive discovery and translate the findings into a target operating model.
Aligning the platform, operating model and growth strategy as one plan
Defining the target state, and the path to it, began with an objective baseline. Mulberry facilitated a self-assessment of IT capability against a plan-build-run framework spanning the full range of IT capabilities, from enterprise architecture and IT strategy through to solution delivery and service operations. Each capability was scored against a maturity scale, and these ratings were tested through a series of stakeholder interviews. During these interviews, the business helped us identify specific pain points.
This combined process surfaced a consistent pattern: while the execution capability was strong, there was significant headroom in architecture and strategy maturity.
Security confidence was rated at 3 out of 10. Technology investment was also not consistently connected to business risk: business-critical risks were well recognised, but the investment needed to mitigate them was not always linked back to the risk it addressed.
Stakeholders also saw an opportunity to align earlier on what a successful solution should achieve. Variable skill and experience in capturing business requirements sometimes led to rework after sign-off.
We also benchmarked the client's IT organisation against three comparable Australian operators to check whether the gaps identified were below par or simply different by design. The comparison showed that peer operators invest more in architecture and security, which confirmed these as the areas for improvement.
Together, these findings pointed to a risk larger than any single project. Even a technically flawless point-of-sale rollout can miss the growth outcomes it was funded to deliver if the operating model behind it is not aligned to where the business is heading. The impact would also be felt well beyond go-live. Clear ownership, defined service levels and effective communication are all products of the operating model. Without the right model in place, running the new platform day to day would be hard. Designing the operating model alongside the platform was therefore essential to realising its value.
With the current state defined, the IT leadership team, with our support, agreed the target maturity the business wanted to reach. Of all the capabilities assessed, seven were prioritised for immediate focus. Each had one of the widest distances between current and target maturity.
An evidence-based roadmap for growth beyond point-of-sale renewal
With both the starting point and the destination clear, we developed and sequenced the initiatives into a three-horizon roadmap that sets out a practical path from one to the other. The first horizon stabilises core architecture and data foundations; the second improves planning and team-member systems; the third enables the larger customer-facing transformation the business ultimately wants to pursue. Each horizon carries specific, actionable recommendations: bootstrap an architecture function through a specialist provider and set up an Architecture Review Group to govern technology decisions; publish a service catalogue with clear service levels; and complete and communicate a formal security policy.
The recommendations were framed around benefits that reached beyond IT itself. For teams, they meant clearer ownership and accountability, as well as more consistent service levels to work to. For customers and partners, they protected the trading experience they depend on day to day, and built the foundation needed to pursue new markets and future customer-facing technology with confidence. For leadership, they provided a shared, evidence-based basis for action in place of competing internal opinions, along with a clear roadmap for building an IT foundation that supports growth ambitions well beyond a point-of-sale renewal.
